BEST OF THE NEW DISKS

BEST OF THE NEW DISKS; A HAUNTING WORK FOR ORCHESTRA AND SOPRANO

By Tim Page

Published: March 8, 1987

The record I have listened to most often this past year is the Symphony No. 3 by Henryk Mikolaj Gorecki (Erato ERA 9275, no cassette or compact disk), featuring the Symphony Orchestra of the Southwestern Radio, Baden Baden, conducted by Ernest Bour. It is a grave, melancholy work for orchestra and soprano, ineptly packaged with a cover that makes it look like punk rock, with no information about the composer, the artists or the origins of the symphony, no texts or translations. But the music -consonant, slow-moving, prayerful, both minimalist and Wagnerian - is haunting. I find the Gorecki symphony has its seasons: sometimes I will become impatient with its sequences and repetitions; at other times, it will move me like few other recent works. The performance seems authoritative, although Stefania Woytowicz's soprano is sometimes hooty.

I have listened with enjoyment to the new Steve Reich recording of ''Sextet'' and ''Six Pianos'' (Nonesuch LP 79138-1 F, also available on cassette and compact disk). The ''Sextet'' has not yet caught my fancy, but the new marimba version of ''Six Pianos,'' jangling and kaleidoscopic, adds a certain subtlety and dynamic control that I have always missed in the original.

I have admired the complete piano music of John Alden Carpenter, played by Denver Oldham on New World Records (NW 328/329, two disks, LP only). At his best, Carpenter was an eloquent, distinctly American minor master; his piano writing is always idiomatic, and Mr. Oldham plays with finesse. And Robert Taub's recording of the complete solo piano music of Milton Babbitt (Harmonia Mundi LP, HMC 5160; also cassette HMC 405160) is a leaping, glassy, hyperkinetic delight.

Finally, the Mapleson Cylinders (Rodgers and Hammerstein Archive of Recorded Sound, R & H 100, six LP's, no tape or compact disk) presents live performances from the Metropolitan Opera between 1900 and 1904 - the first ''bootleg'' recordings, captured by the Met's librarian on a catwalk above the stage. The sound is terrible, of course, but through the Niagara of distortion, one can make out the voices of Jean de Reszke, Lillian Nordica, Nellie Melba and many others. The listener is metamorphosed into a fly on the wall of histo